2009-12-21

Credo

In a Chaos Marxism special for the holiday season, let me attempt a quick profession of faith ("faith" being defined as "hope backed up with experience)...

I do not believe in a "personal God" - or, to put it another way, I do not believe that the abiding and controlling force in human affairs operates in any way analogous to that of a human ego.

I believe that humanity as a collective being has a potential destiny far more rich, deep and satisfying than that of individual egos and self-interested alliances between them.

I believe that capitalism is a social system which selects for the worst, most self-defeating behaviour in human beings. It also selects for great material wealth, and at least the (illusory?) possibility of abundance for all.

I believe we have to build the future we have with the people we have. We have to build a world where we can all safely transcend our individual egos, with people who have been trained to think of nothing but their little egos.

I believe that individual solutions by their very nature cannot save our collective species-being. In the same way that buying organic vegetables will not do a thing to smash the system of exploitative agribusiness, mediation and purifying your own little ego will not do a thing to destroy the social forces which select for bad behaviour. Only collective struggle can dod that.

I believe that no god or alien or ascended master will save us unless we save ourselves. However, I believe that in some circumstances the idea of "God" or "benevolent Space Brother" or "ascended Master" might represent a source of psychic/cultural energy we can call upon to save ourselves.

I believe in the inexpressible benevolence of the creative impulse, as something implicit in human nature and therefore in Nature itself.

2 comments:

  1. Indeed. Hey, what if anything do youse guys know about such things as, "trained incapacity," Markov Chains, Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs), social holons, backcasting/hindvasting/nowcasting memes, sorta like.. Gene prediction or cryptanalysis and why can't some of you Magicked followers whom love a good riddle/enigma thang, suss some clues out of all this etherized data?

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  2. Are you from Ken Wilber's "Integral Theory" school? I'm interested in some of the things you say, but very skeptical about whether we need another Grand Systemisation of Everything.

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